Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Quinny slanted Trystan a helpless look. He was usually a hardass when it came to shit like this, but he was still treading on eggshells around Trystan after everything that had happened with—
His brain skittered away from her name. He tried not to consciously form that name in his mind, on his lips, but he couldn’t fucking escape it in his dreams. And that made uninterrupted sleep an impossibility.
“After the shit Holmes pulled at the last one, I’m not inclined to do another fucking interview, Bee,” Trystan told the woman, hoping his tone brooked no argument.
Bee could be stubborn about these things but who could blame her? That was what he paid her for after all. He chugged down his protein shake in one go and slammed the shaker on the marble countertop when he was done. He swiped his forearm across his upper lip afterward—he hated the vile stuff—but after eating pretty much whatever the fuck he wanted over the past few months, and not maintaining his strict workout schedule, he needed to get back into shape.
Bee and Quinny had ambushed him first thing this morning. It wasn’t even five-thirty yet, for Christ’s sake. They’d made sure to show up before Trystan’s morning workout.
“What about a compromise?” Quinny offered, stepping forward with his palms up in surrender. He looked incongruous in Trystan’s kitchen, wearing a three-piece navy-blue pin-striped suit, while Trystan himself only wore gray sweatpants and a navy-blue tank top.
Bee—a petite sixty-something-year-old flower child—was dressed in her usual bohemian flighty style, wearing a flowy caftan-esque chiffon thing. Her hair was up in a messy chignon, bottle-blonde wisps trailing down around her face. Her make-up was caked on as always, with clumpy mascara—that was already smearing despite the early hour—and bright red lipstick, which had left a stain on her incisors. She folded her arms across her chest, and the many bracelets and beads she wore on her wrists, clacked together at the movement.
“What kind of compromise?” she asked, squinting at Quinny suspiciously. Her glasses would be a lot more effective if she actually looked through them, instead of over them, every once in a while.
“Why not let Trystan choose the journalist, the venue, and the medium?”
“Trystan would choose a high school blogger just to fuck with me,” Bee protested, and Trystan grinned wickedly.
“Brilliant idea, Bee! This is why I pay you the big bucks, baby.”
“Shut up, you massive man child,” she said, reluctant affection nipping at the edges of her words.
Trystan braced his palms on the countertop and stared unseeingly down at the grayish-green veins in the white marble between his hands.
“I don’t mind Quinny’s idea. Let me think about it, okay?”
“I’ll need an answer by tonight, Trystan,” Bee implored.
“Yeah, okay,” he said with a careless shrug, not really interested, but knowing he’d pick someone just to get her and Quinny off his back. Better to just get this shit over and done with. He lifted his gaze to Chance, who stood quietly in the furthest corner of the kitchen. He nodded at the man, “You ready?”
Chance’s expression didn’t change. “If you are.”
“Let’s go.”
Trystan had a home gym, and since he’d learned that Chance was proficient in mixed martial arts and Krav Maga, he’d been working out and training with the guy. Trystan was a pretty decent MMA fighter—nothing close to Chance’s level of course—but Krav Maga was new to him and he was enjoying the training sessions with his bodyguard.
He used to go running every day, but since his return it was impossible to leave the building without a crowd of journalists dogging his every step and screaming questions at him. He still did a few kilometers on the treadmill, but his heart wasn’t in it—he missed his outdoor runs too much. Instead, he channeled his excess energy into weight training and martial arts with Chance.
He waved insouciantly at his manager and PR agent as Chance preceded him from the kitchen, ignoring their outraged faces.
“Lock up on your way out,” he told them as he left the room.
“Great workout,” he huffed, an hour and a half later as he lay flat on his back on a workout mat. Chance nodded in response.
“You’re getting better,” the man said, as he prodded the inside of his cheek with his tongue, wincing a little as he found the spot that had split open after Trystan had broken through his defenses to sneak in a punch. His cheek was swollen and would likely bruise.
“Sorry about your face there, mate,” Trystan said.
“That’s fine. Better this ugly mug taking some damage than those fine porcelain features of yours,” Chance said with a rare grin. Laugh lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes which told Trystan that the man’s features probably settled into a smile more often when he wasn’t at work.
Chance had pulled his punches in the beginning and when Trystan had called him out on it, he’d laughed and muttered something about not wanting to mess up Trystan’s pretty profile. But after Trystan had told him to cut it out, Chance had been less solicitous, landing body blows, while still staying away from Trystan’s face.